Donald Trump said he expected to appoint the acting US attorney general, Todd Blanche, to the role permanently, cementing his position as the country’s top law enforcement officer.
Asked in an interview broadcast on Wednesday on Pod Force One if Blanche would be US attorney general, Trump said: “I think he will.”
“He’s a very talented guy,” Trump said, adding that Blanche – who was appointed on an acting basis in April after the president fired Pam Bondi – was “doing a very good job” at the US Department of Justice.
Under Blanche, the justice department has pursued a series of controversial actions, including the unveiling of criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey, an escalation of its investigation into former CIA director John Brennan and the removal of press releases about prosecutions of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6.
Blanche – a staunch ally of Trump – played a key role in the effort to create a $1.8bn secretive fund to compensate Trump’s allies. On Tuesday, he abruptly announced the fund had been axed, amid widespread condemnation of the plan.
But the US federal government is maintaining an agreement that prohibits the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from auditing Trump, his family and related entities, Blanche told a House appropriations committee hearing.
Trump defended the proposed fund during his podcast appearance. The plan sparked swift legal challenges and political uproar, including from Senate Republicans, who expressed anger that people who attacked the US Capitol could receive taxpayer-funded payouts. Critics condemned it as a slush fund.
“These are people that have been decimated,” said Trump. “There’s never been anything like this, what happened to those people, and these were many great people. And I gave them pardons. I’m very proud to have given them pardons, and I think they should be [reimbursed] for a crooked government.”
In the same interview, Trump confirmed reports that he had an expletive-laden angry phone conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, when he reportedly called the Israeli prime minister “fucking crazy” and said he had helped to “keep him out of jail”.
Asked if he spoke to Netanyahu in those terms, Trump replied: “I did.
“I was – I don’t want to say angry – I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” he added. “At some point I said, ‘Bibi, we got to stop this. You’ve got to stop it.’ But I have a very good relationship. We’ve done well together. Everybody knows that [they] could have never done it without the United States.
“I like Bibi a lot and I’ve worked well with him. I’m a wartime president, he’s a wartime prime minister.”
Asked by Devine to respond to critics who claimed Netanyahu had “tricked” Trump into attacking Iran by prematurely predicting the collapse of the country’s Islamic regime, he said: “I heard that the other day for the first time. He tricked me? I’m the one that started it … because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
He also promoted the idea of 2028 Republican presidential ticket of JD Vance, the vice-president, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, a one-time Trump adversary who has emerged as a key figure in his administration, also serving as national security adviser in the White House.
“I would think that JD and Marco as a team would be very hard to beat,” Trump said. “It’s interesting, human thing, the human equation. So I watch them together, they get along great.”
His comments followed reports that he had recently soured on Vance succeeding him as president when Trump’s term ends in 2029, with Trump constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
While Vance has widely been seen as the frontrunner as the Republicans’ 2028 presidential nominee, Trump has lately taken to canvassing opinion in the White House insiders as to whether people prefer him or Rubio as the candidate.
Reuters contributed reporting
